Intentionality

How much movement orchestrated is intended?
Another’s intention or your own?  How much do we rely on others?
If we haven’t got time to think does the body take over and if so how does it select?  Do we just pick a movement at random and then draw upon known phrases from there? By doing this, it any spontaneous movement new or just reordered?  A hidden form  of plageurism?  Can we reinvent without preconception?  Can we create new languages and vocabulary set apart from convention?
Where does your desire to innovate come from?

Comments

  1. Hannah Lindsay30 March 2018 at 08:40

    I was just thinking along these lines last night in class. I did an improv warmup and several of the students mentioned how they couldn't think what to do next. I told them to stop thinking about it and let their body do the thinking for them, but that's a concept that's going to take a while to unpack, I think. I noticed that they're starting to amass enough movement vocabulary that they don't merely have to copy something I've taught in class but are starting to put things together in different ways.

    Thinking through the class on the drive home, I wondered how much of my own improv is really new or how much I'm just pulling from some long distant class somewhere--I mean, there's only so many ways in which you can combine movements, I guess, and how much is really me creating and how much is my body realizing it's done x movement after y movement and so it does it? It might feel new, but perhaps I'm just pulling together forgotten movement pieces from long ago, if that makes sense.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown6 April 2018 at 14:21

      Thanks Hannah. Yes exactly. Perhaps our body knows exactly where it is and our mind is having one of those deja vu moments! Does this makes our bodies actually more intelligent than our minds? So matter over mind would be more accurate!

      Delete
  2. BealesOnBallet5 April 2018 at 23:26

    I try to think always before creating, the problems with that is that not all of my movement is then natural. unless it is improve, and then I normally let gravity, music, emotion, and momentum take over!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unknown6 April 2018 at 14:22

      Thank you! Perhaps skilled bodies can decide for themselves

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

DO YOU BELIEVE DANCE IS INNATE?  IS SELECTION HEALTHY?  WHAT COULD SELECTION ALSO REPRESENT?  IN A WORLD OF MULTIPLICITY are we shutting out possibility and potential through rigid selection based on a set of rules?  Who makes up the rules and who believes them?  OUR BODIES ARE LIVING, BREATHING SPONGES!  How much do we retain?  Is this only possible through repetition? Can we only draw on movement years later that has been ingrained.  Is this a form of 'brain-washing' with the body?  What could be the benefits as well as the dangers?  Please can you blog back an example from your own experience of a certain set of codes that have been created for a dance style and by who - what you think their reasons were? Does repetition, routine fit the purpose for creative people?  Can too much drill result in crushing creativity or support certainty and are the instincts the body learns our own? Would love to hear your thoughts on this.
Read more

Reflexive practise

Rarely have I worked for anyone else and I have always learned a great deal from my learners.  At times I wonder who is educating who! With your own school you are reliant on the children coming back each week.  You have to work hard all the time to sustain their interest and continually adapt to each requirement.   You can’t treat everyone the same and you have to work with your learners and provide them with stimuli on their terms.  The sophistication of our next generation insists on controlling their own interests and are self-determining. This results in continual self-reflection and reflexive thought as teachers. And so while living in a bubble can be detrimental, innovation comes free from constraints and is possible only when in autonomous environments. Any thoughts?
Read more

Outside in to Inside Out!

The Church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta. ~Eduardo Galeano I also love this quote from Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw 'I will always be a flowergirl to Professor Higgins, because he will always treat me as a flower-girl and always will, but I will always be a lady to Colonel Pickering because he will always treat me as a lady and always will'. Question Are we products of how we are treated? Has our past, present and future been determined by that of others? If so, to what extent? AND When can we feel uninhibited, free and completely ourselves? What can allow us this? Is it our right? Would love to hear your answers or thoughts.  Thanks.
Read more